Last year, Delta Spirit performed at Newport Folk Fest and opened for My Morning Jacket and John Fogerty. The pairings were appropriate, given that the Long Beach-via-San Diego quintet's first two albums were largely rustic, folk-tinged affairs. They approach their music with a broader palette on their third, homonymous album — and the results are spectacular. Exuberant indie-pop signifiers referencing the Beach Boys, Arcade Fire, Spoon, and MMJ dominate — from the nostalgic harmonies waterfalling through "California" and the surf-riff fuzz coating "Idaho," to the drumstick-chop rhythms and coiled psych-rock of "Otherside" and new-wave-power-pop buzz of "Money Saves." Delta Spirit's more atmospheric tracks are just as mesmerizing: on "Time Bomb," pattering percussion marches between measured piano plinks and sustained keyboard chords— creating a majestic pastiche of dreamy '80s synth-rock — while vocalist Matthew Vasquez croons with the classical aplomb of Rufus Wainwright on the lush, soaring "Into The Darkness." The characters in Delta Spirit's songs— wistful daydreamers, hopeless romantics, and clear-eyed pragmatists alike— are as rich and complex as the music. The protagonist of "California" implores a former flame, "I want you to move to California for yourself/I want you to find whatever your heart needs" as a magnanimous way of justifying the heartbreak (and implied break-up) caused by this move. A lovely, thoughtful album.

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DESAPARECIDOS EXPERIENCE REBIRTH | February 20, 2013 In 2001, Desaparecidos were just another band formed by Conor Oberst, already a veteran of the Omaha music scene at the tender age of 21.

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THE BRIGHT LIGHTS OF ELLIE GOULDING | January 18, 2013 Long before Ellie Goulding hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in summer 2012 with "Lights" — a starry-eyed dance-floor trifle with subtle neo-disco beats and sleek keyboard burbles — the singer-songwriter was a star in her native England.